EM Embalming

EM Embalming (EM エンバーミング, EM Enbāmingu) is a 1999 Japanese horror film directed by Shinji Aoyama, starring Reiko Takashima.

EM Embalming
Directed by	Shinji Aoyama
Written by	Izo Hashimoto Shinji Aoyama
Based on	EM by Saki Amemiya
Produced by	Katsuaki Takemoto Satoru Ogura
Starring	Reiko Takashima Yutaka Matsushige Seijun Suzuki Toshio Shiba
Cinematography	Ihiro Nishikubo
Edited by	Soichi Ueno Shinji Aoyama
Music by	Isao Yamada Shinji Aoyama
Release date	July 31, 1999 (1999-07-31) (Japan)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Plot

Cast

• Reiko Takashima as Miyako Murakami
• Yutaka Matsushige as Detective Hiraoka
• Seijun Suzuki as Kurume
• Toshio Shiba as Dr. Fuji
• Kojiro Hongo as Jion
• Hitomi Miwa as Rika Shinohara
• Masatoshi Matsuo as Yoshiki Shingo

Reception

Todd Brown of Twitch Film commented that Shinji Aoyama is creating a subtle parody of the Japanese horror film industry.^[1] Stina Chyn of Film Threat noted that EM Embalming is one of the few Japanese horror films that contains actual non-creepy segments.^[2] Andy McKeague of Monsters and Critics felt that the film is genuinely unsettling and morbidly fascinating at the same time.^[3]

Mike Bracken of IGN criticized the film, saying that EM Embalming's greatest failure is that it often tries to be too many things at once and the film itself is almost as schizophrenic as its antagonist. However, he felt that several sequences of the embalming process are gruesome and extended conversations between Miyako and the black market organ harvester are eerily intriguing.^[4]

Meanwhile, Mark Schilling of The Japan Times said: "While verging on a black comic turn, Toshio Shiba's performance as Dr. Fuji is the film's strongest; his dark night of the soul is not just another fashionably blank attitude, but the genuine article, forged in the satanic mills of anger, loathing and despair."^[5]